Aug 17 2010

2010 Midterms

DLC theme song:

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    • Edger on August 17, 2010 at 5:59 pm
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    they do play voters like a violin, most places.

    • Edger on August 17, 2010 at 6:13 pm
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    The Hill this morning:

    President Obama told a Hollywood fundraiser Monday night that he and congressional Democrats have passed the most progressive legislation in decades.

    “We have been able to deliver the most progressive legislative agenda – one that helps working families – not just in one generation, maybe two, maybe three,” Obama said.

    [snip]

    With polls showing Democrats in serious trouble during an anti-incumbent election year, Obama said that helping Democrats get elected in November is his “focus over the next several months.”

    BTAL reponds in a comment at Talkleft:

    My Bold.

    Dang, almost missed the nuanced point he made….

    He’s focusing on their jobs.  OK, got it.

  3. just didn’t get through.

    There is an idea that small changes that take generations to implement are realistic and pragmatic.  It probably really is true, sadly, that the crumbs and giveaways Obama and the Democrats engineered probably really is “the most progressive legislation in decades” – because Bill Clinton was not a progressive and then you have to look back to Jimmy Carter.

    They point to the decades it took to make Social Security what it is, the problem is today’s Republicans are not like those of yesteryear, and the entire notion that they could take generations to make progressive change that helps most Americans is ludicrous in today’s climate – it rests on the notion of generational rule by a single party.  Nobody gets that.  Nobody.  And the other party is simply going to dismantle whatever they could dismantle and make even more of a joke out of the rest.  The Republicans of today are not our fathers’ Republicans; they aren’t going to let things ride.  They are not in it for Americans, even as a theoretical abstract exercise.  They are going to use these loopholes, that were made from the outset, and explode Obama’s “progressive change” in a million pieces.  They already are, together with the Blue Dogs, and they’re not even in power yet.

    And even if a few, tiny minority out of the millions of Americans that could in theory be helped, are helped by “the most progressive change in a generation”, all this is going to do is set up yet another class of people who are privileged in some way, on account of just happening to not fall through the cracks, cracks that were engineered from the outset, to literally exclude most people.  A class of people who get health care, while others die.  A class of people who are helped by the government, while others go pound sand.  This is not conducive even for the idea that Democrats wish to help most Americans — and it’s going to feed into the notion that the “party of the left” in this country has no answers, is weak and venal.  It is simply going to exacerbate bitterness, bitterness that is already there.

    This is not moving forward, even on a promise.  We are looking at the beginning of the end of the Democratic Party.  Because, when the Republicans take over, and they will, whether it is this election or 2012, the Democrats would have to start again, at ground zero.  And who is going to give them that chance — that chance, after the Republicans make a dog’s dinner out of every single thing they did and laugh in their faces?

  4. elected establishment power brokers and non-elected financial interests that have bought the elected politicians. The 18th century rational government is a legacy that partisans take full advantage of fighting over in a phony war.

         Militarism, exclusionary policies, war, conservatism and the poor treatment of immigrants are well documented problems of democracy even with a constitution and bill of rights. That is why this is not a political war but a struggle for human rights and social justice.

       There are a lot of Democrats suckered into wasting time and money on the politics culture when they should concentrate building their communities.

         After accommodation to the rogue system, there is no room for compromise. Without compromise, there is no politics, only feudalism; in the 21st century, that defines radical conservatism. Whatever their good intentions may be, partisans are inadvertently supporting conservative values by pursuing partisan interests and mass society rather than the development of their local communities and public non-parisan commons.

         Those who think that they are doing both are building on one hand and setting up for destruction on the other. When you make room for Unca Scrooge, Huey, Dewey and Louie do not compromise about sleeping in the same room so that Scrooge can have an extra room the bathe himself in coins from his fortune of five multiplujillion, nine impossibidillion, seven fantasticatrillion dollars and sixteen cents, they have to. That the Beagle Boys inevitably come withe the package is never debated, much like single payer in the Senate finance committee.

            As people demand their party to be more oppositional, they complain about a government that does not work. It takes more imagination than people are willing to invest in their own fate. Politically active partisans are unable to resist the hype generated to lure them into the mock battles. Keep cheering for your party to win partisans, as if it is a Texas high school football rivalry because the tornado of political opposition depends upon partisan hot air to keep twisting.

         

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